I for one would like to see how the "open access point" defense holds up in court, e.g. claiming that you internet connection was through an unencrypted wireless router, therefore ANY of your neighbors could have been sharing those files! If somebody taps into your phone line and then uses it to threaten the Prime Minister, should they come and arrest you, just because you're the one paying for the phone line?

Can and will. A great practical joke is while visiting a friends house with kids. Pick up their phone and dial 911, imitate a childs voice and say, "help me my dads touching me in a bad way again." Ohh man it's a hoot. Took them like $6000 and several visits to a court house to get their kids back from CPS.

I wouldn't want to be the one testing this theory. Sure, it might work, but there's a good chance that certain judges would think it's bunk and hold the owner of the access point responsible. If nothing else, they could say that if you had reason to believe it wasn't secure and still kept it on that you were negligent.If drug dealers were using your front porch and you didn't seem to mind, you would be an accessory to the crime. It would be a different story if you were out of town the entire time.

Even if the "open access point" defense does work, the access point owner will go through a lot more trouble than it's worth to prove themselves innocent.

But that's just it, isn't it? Although it's starting to look a little tattered around the edges, most western democracies still subscribe to the "innocent until proven guilty" line. Plus, as the Michael Jackson trial showed, if there is a single shred of reasonable doubt then the judge/jury is supposed to return a verdict of not guilty. In theory, th

Plus, as the Michael Jackson trial showed, if there is a single shred of reasonable doubt then the judge/jury is supposed to return a verdict of not guilty. In theory, this is even supposed to apply even if your personal belief is that the accused is guilty as sin, although perhaps not in practice.

But the record companies are suing, which means this is a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Of course, in a criminal matter (in the U.S., at least), you need to prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt," as you

One question that I haven't seen answered in any of the articles about suits against file sharers is where is the proof?If the ISP's are merely handing over names and addresses to match IP's then where is the proof that these people downloaded copyrighted material? Is it a session from a computer at the record companies premises? I don't see how this constitues a legal proof, surely it is just an unsubstantiated claim. As TCP/IP is an un-authenticated protocol, how can they show that a computer on the netwo

It is a civil case, so you need to show more than reasonable doubt. You must show that it is likely that you didn't do it. Hypothetically:1. Make sure there's no damn trace of any illegal music on your HDD. Wipe, not delete. There's a good possibility your PC will be confiscated as evidence if you play hardball. Not a total wipe, it needs to be a plausible "clean" computer showing use (access times etc.) since before the complaint.

2. Get a wireless router, or reset your own. Default password, no encryption

Yeah, you shouldn't be running an unencrypted wireless router; if someone uses it for illegal activities, then you are responsible for providing them the tools.

But when WEP is so easy to break, even if you have encryption turned on you are not really stopping anyone from using your network. Is that enough or is it possible that currently it's simply not safe to have a wireless router at all? If someone uses your network for something illegal, and you have WEP enabled - is that enough to protect you from c

I have heard the "damaging music", "hurts the artists", "blah blah blah" arguments from the record companies for what, six years now?

Regardless of whether you think downloading music is right or wrong, I don't see any evidence of all this "damage". So, if you are suing for damages, but there aren't any, then what should the fine really be?

"Regardless of whether you think downloading music is right or wrong, I don't see any evidence of all this "damage"."

Check out the earnings reports from some of the publicly-traded record companies some day, or google on "record company layoffs." It's been pretty ugly. The record companies are blaming a lot of this on piracy.

I have seen a variety of earnings reports. Some show increases and some show decreases. I tend to believe the reports you are citing are political more than reality. I don't know though.

I know I don't buy music anymore because the music is crap and it is far too expensive for what you get.

If there really are losses, it could be because:a) Today's music is crapb) People have already "upgraded" their collections from tape/record to CD and aren't buying anymorec) People aren't buying because of high prices

How could file downloads be any more damaging to music than radio airplay, which the record companies appear to beleive increases record sales, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much money paying for airplay! Here these people are providing an equivalent service free of charge, and they are claiming it is "damaging music"? The only way it could damage music is if they use a compression scheme that is too lossy!

When you listen to the radio, you get to hear a song once in awhile. Not on demand. And it's not a file that you're keeping. Sure you could record off the radio to tape, but the quality would be truly dreadful. So radio, by and large, can function as a marketing channel for labels. If you hear something you like on the radio, the betting is that you'll run out to buy a copy to keep.With file sharing, you are downloading a copy of the file that you keep. You can listen to the song whenever you want. A

Getting a well-edited tape recording, and somehow keeping it from degrading over time would be difficult and costly to do. So would getting the necessary editing equipment to take out ads. This is assuming there are no DJ's voices over the song in the recording, and also given the fact that radio is quite low-quality in the first place.

You have obviously never used DAT. It has better sound than most CDs. And is great for portable use since it doesn't skip. But without random access tracks and 40x+ data transfers it is rather impractical for general use. It is not the quality of the tape medium per se that is the problem.

Generally speaking, radio airplay encourages sales -- it's how many people learn about music. Piracy discourages sales -- once people have an MP3 of a song that they can listen to as many times as they want, there's little need to go buy another copy.

More importantly, each time a song is played on the radio, the artist gets a bit of money (and this is handled in a way that entirely sidesteps the record company). Downloading a song from a P2P site to avoid paying for it does not make any money for the ar

once people have an MP3 of a song that they can listen to as many times as they want, there's little need to go buy another copy. Unless, of course, they want to listen something a little higher quality than the crappy lossy-compressed files generally available on the web... this used to be called "try before you buy", where the record store would provide turntables and let you listen to a record before you actually payed for it. If you know of any places I can get CD-quality files for free, I'd appreciate

Generally speaking, radio airplay encourages sales -- it's how many people learn about music. Piracy discourages sales -- once people have an MP3 of a song that they can listen to as many times as they want, there's little need to go buy another copy.

However, an MP3 can also encourage people to buy CDs or attend concerts. Especially the latter, as you can't really download the full club experience with today's technology. This has happened to me a number of times.

Not many people go out of the way to copy a rented dvd or tape because it is to easy and cheap just to rent it again and let someone else store it.

Mostly because they majority of them can't. Tapes are protected with Macrovision, and DVDs likewise, so you can't just run a copy off to tape. Plus few people have multi-layer DVD recorders, nor the software to rip them.

People actually copied commercial VHS tapes all the time until Macrovision was introduced. After that, you needed special hardware to do it,

I don't know who this Harry Potter person is and how you can buy him, but I am sure he is not very happy that he was 'donated' to the library and will now be shared by every greasy finger library user!

Set up a system where anyone can logon to listen to a song. The songs are streamed and can't be copied to a personal machine. Allow anyone access to the system. Limit each song to only one person accessing it at a time (like checking it out). And make sure you own each song on the system. Movies can be used too. Would this be legal and within your rights?

Not in the U.S., at least with respect to music. See 17 U.S.C. 106(6). The answer is not so clear for movies (in the U.S.), but I would suspect it would

Legally, they're right to sue. Morally, i'm not so sure anyone should be charing for music in the first place... It's kinda like making a business selling air.... Something that has always been around and something that isn't ever going away and somewhere someone had an idea to make a profit selling something that should be free...

And it's wrong. Music takes people time and effort to produce; while they're doing that, they're not using their time for anything else - earning money, building a career, spending time with friends and family, watching paint dry, whatever. That investment of time and talent deserves to be compensated (assuming someone likes their music enough to want to listen to it, of course).

Air is a natural resource that requires no investment of time or money to produce.

Except that 99.99% of the bands/artists in the world DON'T live from music. Most of them have jobs.And yes, the ARTISTS deserve to be paid. Why do I have to pay a RECORD COMPANY for something they didn't do, but rather the artists?Not only that, but most bands WANT publicity and want their music to be shared, at least until they get rich and cocky. Metallica, before they became so popular, actually motivated people to share their stuff with their friends, for free. Then they saw it's a cashcow that can be m

The artists who sign with the record companies are not forced to do so at gunpoint. They sign those contract willingly. If they don't like the contract, they should figure out how to produce, market and distribute their music on their own.

The artists signed the contracts -- presumabely they felt they were better off with the record company than without the record company. Who are you to interfere with the artist's right to contract with the record company and decide for yourself who should get what money

Please -- most bands practically trip over themselves to sign with a major label. Everyone thinks that with major label backing, they'll be the next Madonna\Mariah\Britney\whatever. They only get "tricked" because they let the $$$ signs blind them to the realities of the contract.

But that goes back to my statement -- they obviously feel that signing with the major label is the best thing for them, that's why they do it. Maybe if they were better educated as to ind

"Why do I have to pay a RECORD COMPANY for something they didn't do, but rather the artists?"

95% of the work that goes into getting a CD into your hands was performed by people who are not the artist.

If you're a musician and you have the time, talent and means to find a good producer, rent a studio, hire session musicians, design your cover art, have thousands of CDs produced, sell them into distribution, manage a co-op ad program with thousands of record stores, deal with product returns, produce a m

95% of the work that goes into getting a CD into your hands was performed by people who are not the artist.

And this work is usually already paid for before the album even starts recording.Maybe except for the advertising and pushing to radio stations bits, which are really an expensive part. But why to even mess with it? Do like 99% of the artists and just spread the word, gaining publicity by word of mouth and by performing gigs.

I've heard many stories of small bands who sign up to indie labels, make great

" Except that 99.99% of the bands/artists in the world DON'T live from music. Most of them have jobs.And yes, the ARTISTS deserve to be paid. Why do I have to pay a RECORD COMPANY for something they didn't do, but rather the artists?"

The record company invested in the band and gave them the resources needed to make it big. They deserve a return on their investment.

It's kinda like making a business selling air.... Something that has always been around and something that isn't ever going away and somewhere someone had an idea to make a profit selling something that should be free...

Wow, selling air. What a concept. Before you know it they'll be selling water too -- and at prices higher than gasoline.

That the situation has been allowed to degenerate to such an extent here in.uk. I mean, suing filesharers has had no effect on stemming the rising tide of music sharing in the US and now the UK companies want to go headlong down the same path.

A couple of months ago I did manage to get a (heavily edited) letter published in The Times newspaper here in the UK. Although they wanted hard references for many of my points, which I was caught off guard and not able to supply them with over the phone (such as

But half of me thinks he is, in his own way, still living in the 20th century.

Not to be an ass, but wasn't the 20th century only like 5 years ago?

In summary, music isn't scarce any more and it CAN be copied easily.

Music isn't scarce? Then why is everyone always complaining that there isn't any good music out there? Music as a whole may not be scarce, but I suspect that the amount of music worth listening to is a pretty small fraction of the music out there. Shouldn't those who produce something worth lis

Wouldn't it be MORE likely that the record companies would invest MORE money and effort into better and stronger DRM and other non-copying technology, since they can would no longer be able to rely on the courts to help them make a buck?

Indeed they would - and this is _precisely_ how a free market would (and should) work without the distorting effects of copyright.

Why does everyone automatically think the the RIAA and others would just throw in the towel if copyright went away?

Half of me thinks this guy is right and that he does deserve to be paid for the performance of his compositions (but EVERY time - insert credit card into CD player before pressing play?) But half of me thinks he is, in his own way, still living in the 20th century.

All of me thinks he's full of shit. The vast majority of people do not get paid repeatedly for work already performed. They get paid once. The guy who built my car doesn't expect to get paid every time I drive it. The guy who built my washer does

On the flip side. I've purchased some 160 individual tracks from iTunes on the past year. The prior year, I bought maybe 3 CDs. That has to be beefing up their margins somehow, and the smartest thing they ever did was to start selling "singles" again...

From what I can tell, the music industry is doing it all by themselves. I turn on the radio these days just to make sure it still sucks (and it does) and ClearChannel is still playing the same damn songs they were 2 years ago. It all sounds the same, lacks innovation, and gives no one compelling reasons to purchase it. I have no idea how pirating the one good song they play on the radio is "damaging music". Aren't they worried that suing their potential customers is only

From what I can tell, the music industry is doing it all by themselves. I turn on the radio these days just to make sure it still sucks (and it does) and ClearChannel is still playing the same damn songs they were 2 years ago.

Man, you said it. In 1998 I drove cross country in a car with only a radio and man, did the music suck. Recently my car CD player crapped out and I've been forced to listen to the radio. They're playing the same fucking shit songs they were 7 years ago! OK, about half of what they pl

My library, for example has thousands and thousands of CDs, with an especially rich collection of jazz and blues but with plenty of fairly recent pop music as well.

You've already paid for access to your library's resources, so you might as well use them. Plus, considering that the American Library Association is willing to stand up to the Feds when it comes to snooping at people's library records, I don't think the RIAA has much chance to see what I've borrowed, and even less chance to prove that I've ri

The real proof will be getting an actual conviction. Proving that it was more than just an IP address sharing the files. Finding the actual computers (diskwipe anybody). Proving that files were actually downloaded by another person (this is going to be tricky). Proving what losses you've actually suffered because of this. Proving that the files weren't already available elsewhere (where did these alleged file sharers get them). Proving it wasn't somebody else breaking in over you know highly insecure

What's being stolen is the Public Domain. It is being stolen by ever increasing lengths of copyright durations that far exceed the -- in the USA at least -- expressed intent of encouraging the creation of the performing arts.

The moment something is created, the copyright in effect at that moment was clearly sufficient for its creation. Extending it afterwards only steals from the public at large to benefit -- not the individual artist to any great extent, who may already be dead -- but the giant publishing corporations who have sought to own all creative works in perpetuity for centuries now. The American Constitution specifies secure for a limited periodexactly because European publishing houses of the time had been able to lock up copyrights forever.

I don't seen any independent artists selling in iTMS at a discount to the $.99 being funneled to the big companies. It might bring Big Music down if you could buy better stuff for less money. And wasn't Apple always about bringing down Big Everything to benefit the Common Man?

If you mean artists who are on indie labels, there's a ton of that on iTMS -- in fact, most of the content is from non-RIAA labels.

If you mean unsigned artists, they're on iTMS as well. It's similar to the fact that many good record stores carry CDs by unsigned artists, but the majority of their inventory is from labels. If you're an unsigned musician you generally have to go through a third party to get your stuff sold on the big online stores. I believe CDBaby [cdbaby.com] used to provide an encoding service for

But I remember the days when companies tried to get my dollar by offering me quality and service. Now it seems we get handed BS, and threats. Gone are the days when loyalty mattered. Now. Screw you if you aren't new.

If you don't like the fact that you spend £15 on a CD and can't give your friends a copy, then leave that £15 in you pocket or spend it on something else.

We (actually: RMS) didn't like the license on some software 20 years ago, so he started GNU and wrote his own putting it under the GPL. Rather than wingeing about the nasty record labels - do what RMS did: produce

> > The UK has bigger problems right now than worrying about a bunch of Spice Girl piratez.
> >
Exactly. Why isn't anyone doing anything about all the bloody trolls sneaking into the country on cargo ships from Norway?

How's this for a Norwegian troll?

"As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of a Micro$oft shill making a comparison involving Linus Torvalds approaches 1"

The UK has bigger problems right now than worrying about a bunch of Spice Girl piratez.

Oh for fuck's sake, if I read or hear the Threat of Terror!!11! being used as an excuse for doing (or not doing) something one more time I'm going to throttle someone.

Bigger problems my arse. We survived 20+ years of IRA bombing campaigns, we'll survive these Johnny-come-latelys perfectly well thank you very much. We don't feel the need to fall to pieces and invade a couple of countries just because someone thinks they ca

"The UK has bigger problems right now than worrying about a bunch of Spice Girl piratez."

Oh for fuck's sake, if I read or hear the Threat of Terror!!11! being used as an excuse for doing (or not doing) something one more time I'm going to throttle someone.
Bigger problems my arse. We survived 20+ years of IRA bombing campaigns, we'll survive these Johnny-come-latelys perfectly well thank you very much. We don't feel the need to fall to pieces and invade a couple of countries just because someone thinks t

Just because someone has bigger fish to fry doesn't mean he doesn't want an appetizer.If you let copyright infringers off of the hook because there are rapists on the loose, and you let rapists off of the hook because there are terrorists on the loose, pretty soon you'll have to let everyone off of the hook for some reason or another.

Of course, it doesn't make sense to devote large amounts of money to something that's not an important issue at the moment (but making a press release doesn't imply anything ab

Telling people how they should earn a living and telling a corporation what their profits should be is SOOOOO free market!

Hey, this is slashdot, where we believe in Freedom - the Freedom to subscribe to exactly the same ideologies as we do, or be vilified. Where the rich record companies should abandon their dying business model and move with the times, while techies should fight outsourcing tooth and nail to hang on to their highly-paid jobs.

I believe the GP was arguing that the concept of copyright should be eliminated(or, in his own words, "fucked"), and that the state he described would be the "natural" state of the economy following this.

I know -- I just couldn't resist the obvious issue in the poster's comments...

The strength with which the assumption is made smacks slightly of utopian anarchism to me: it is no more inherently believable than the RIAA's scenarios for a future without copyright.

Actually, I am the OP (though as I'm posting AC, you've no reason to trust me on that) I am in favor of abolishing minimum-wage laws and "contracts OF service" (as opposed to "FOR") totally, as it happens.

Minimum wage laws protect your rights to earn a living that does not leave you hungry and even leaves some time to pursue happynes.

I don't know what country you're from, but here in the States min wage laws have never done a goddamn thing. They follow along with market wages always so low that they are irrelevant. If you really want to see what minimum wage laws can do, raise 'em above the market minimum wage. I mean, Duh! Never gonna happen though. Our corporacracy wouldn't allow it.

Well, you see, little boy, in our society we consider that people can have intellectual, as well as physical property. Effort is made into writing, recording and distributing music, investments are made based upon the notion that the investment, plus at least some small bit of profit, will be incurred at some point. When you steal music, you rob all parties involved of profit, and if sufficient music is stolen, then the parties involved could be put in a situation where creating and distributing music isn

Well, you see, little boy, in our society we consider that people can have intellectual, as well as physical property.

Also in our society little boys, and girls, grow up to become voting men and women and will elect representatives who share their world view which is likely to be diametrically opposed to those currently in power.

Until, of course, they get to the age where they're property owners in their own right (and no, MP3 players are not what I mean), and realize that people deserve compensation for their efforts, and not to have it ripped off by amoral bastards.

Until, of course, they get to the age where they're property owners in their own right (and no, MP3 players are not what I mean), and realize that people deserve compensation for their efforts, and not to have it ripped off by amoral bastards.

No, I think they're going to realize that the cost to society as a whole far outweighs any value that current IP laws contribute. The vast majority of people get paid for the work that they did today, not for the work they did yesterday. They are going to have just as

"Yes, because it's the consumers who have damaged music. It couldn't possibly be damaged by all the crappy artists they've promoted the last decade."

Simple bromides won't cover it. It can be due to a lot of things. Blaming it solely on crappy music is just as naive on blaming it solely on file sharers. Even if piracy is responsible for something less than 100%, this does not eliminate the need to fix the problem. If you're not sure what I'm getting at, think of it as if you owned a retail store. If

Easy. Any level of lossy compression is a damaged version of the original. And if consumers get used to listening to damaged music, and even like it, well bad music will certainly drive good music out.

Then again, it's hard to imagine anything more damaging to music than a circa 1960 era car radio with a 5-inch paper dynamic speaker cone that has baked itself into petrification after a few summers inside a closed up car. Clearly after a couple experiences with that, no one li

"These record companies will go out of business or figure out a way to continue their business that fits with what we are willing to pay for, such as handcuffware-free ways of listening to music."

Unfortunately, the iTunes Music Store has been a fantastically wild success by any measure. They just sold their 50 millionth track and their traffic is still growing exponentially. Apple and the record companies are laughing all the way to the bank.

Amen! I couldn't agree more, but perhaps I have something to add here as well...

I like to remind people of the economic theory that the price of a good tends to its marginal production cost, which for a CD must be less than the price of a blank CD-R. The price of information itself is zero by this argument.

On the other hand, I think people should be paid for the work they do.

The twist is that the work that musicians do is not the duplication of bits, it's the making of music! Therefore it's natural to

I think your misunderstanding lies in your hugely broad generalization. There are many, many artists who don't play concerts and who make all their money through CD sales. Plus, CD sales lost to piracy reduce the artist's chance to make more CDs, which limits their ability to get concert gigs in addition to, of course, royalties from CD sales. And, the record industry is hugely speculative -- the big hits finance the majority of the CDs that are money-losers. The more r

They should get about the same for other sales but typically the record company has "promotion" expenses that come to 10 cents (or more sometimes) per sale. So most second tier acts (and many 1st tier acts who can't renegotiate) end up having to tour to make money and may end up owing the record company money after a successful record.

Really? Which UK do you live in? Because I live in the one where the Labour party just won a 66 seat majority with only 35% of the vote. Thats right, 65% of the electorate voted against Labour, and they were still handed a comfortable win.

By contrast, the Conservatives got 33% of the vote, just 2% less than Labour, but won 198 seats to Labours 356.

> I won't be buying or downloading any music from now on (legal or otherwise)

So you'll be sticking with what you've already got? That's about what I've been doing, too, except for filling out my collection with the occasional purchase at the used record store.

From 1960 to 2000, there was such an explosion of good music that it may be that people don't need much more. Some of the great bands are still making [amazon.com] music [amazon.com]. Will people continue to move from fad to fad?

Too bad about your experiences. But there's a lot of legal and free music for download, and it's not encumbered by DRM or other silly limitations. For example legaltorrents [legaltorrents.com] and kahvi [kahvi.org].

I'm sure radio stations in the UK are a lot like they are in america: the same handful of songs played over and over, from a narrow list of genres. I'm not old enough to remember, but from what I gather, radio didn't used to be like this.

I think radio music has pretty much always sucked. Long before Clearchannel. And small (unsigned) bands never got any radio time at least as far back as I can remember (mid 1970s). If you think today's pop music is bad (and it is) just imagine hearing the Bee Gees or Barry

guys with day jobs who program in the evenings, why can't musicans get a day job and write and play/record by evening?

Even some signed and famous musicians have day jobs. A vocalist for one of my favorite artists also works as a waitress 'cause she has to pay the bills. Haha. Seems like those royalties don't add up to that much. I wonder what percent of signed musicians can make enough money to support themselves without day jobs.

I don't think that musicians should just release all their music for free unle